The Crying Universe Chapter 1
by TOPGRRRL
Summary: Lyra and Will are 30. Lyra can understand teh alethiometer--sorta. Will is trying to fix the subtle knife. Someone is watching them...


"The Crying Universe"

Disclaimer: Phillip Pullman owns everything in "His Dark Materials," and I am simply allowing my imagination to explore this series (which I am sadly quite new to). Don't British authors rock??

Author's Note: This is when Lyra is thirty years old, when she starts to remember the alethiometer symbols. Will is thirty as well, and he is desperately trying to come up with a way to bring back the subtle knife, so that he and Lyra can be reunited, just for a little while. The beginning of my humble scribbles takes place on Midsummer's Day at midday.

Compare this story to the others that I have written. This is the fault of Pullman. He's an excellent author, and I guess he rubbed off on me.

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Lyra sat in the bench at the Botanical Gardens in Oxford with Pan in her lap. She silently sobbed and stroked the daemon's fur, keeping the memories of Will close to her. In Will's Oxford, she knew that he would be sitting in the same bench in their overlapping worlds. She loved him still, exactly the same as the day they had departed those seventeen years ago. Her heart still longed for his strong arms to wrap around her as they had in the mulefa's world. Her lips longed for the cool touch of his own, like they did that first day, under the broken tree--Mary's broken tree. Though this day was mostly in memory of Will, Lyra found herself weeping for all whom she had to leave behind. Pantalaimon felt such pity for the graceful woman that Lyra had become, strong and confident most of the time. But at noon every Midsummer's Day, Lyra's soul seemed to droop and sing, fly and drag. Her being itself was muddled with thoughts of sweet sorrow and glorious grief. Noon brought mixed feelings for Pan as well. Her loved the feeling of flying with Kirjava, another daemon, who he knew would play an important part of Lyra's life. A brief role Kirjava did play, and so, sadly, did Will. Pan liked Will a lot, and he remembered the good times that Lyra, Will, and he had together. The memories brought back flashes of sadness, giddiness, and, most importantly, love. 

In the same exact bench in a different world, Will sat. He was so very lovesick that his heart ached. He longed for Lyra. He missed her dirty blonde hair, how he twirled it in his fingers. He missed the very first time they kissed, how the fruit juice danced along their lips and brought a blush across Lyra's face and his own under the broken tree—Mary's broken tree. She was at the end of her rope. She was a scientist and has been exposed to too many X-rays. Mary was the only friend that Will could have in his world, really. He visited her everyday in the hospital at his lunch break. But today, he couldn't. He had to sit next to Lyra. He was in the next seat and a million worlds away from her. He sighed a heartbroken sigh, as confused and sorrowful as Lyra was. He and Lyra had never been able to meet other people. They belonged together, and the entire Universe knew it. The Angels tried to send love and luck their way, but Lyra and Will didn't want to accept it. Kirjava and Pantalaimon missed each other, certainly, but did not crave each other as the humans did. Daemons were the spirit part of people, not the soul. After one o'clock, Lyra and Will went their separate ways, too downhearted to notice the shadowy figure near the fountain in both of their worlds. 

Lyra went back to her study of the alethiometer. It was sitting there on her desk, still as shiny and perfect as the day she received it. The needle didn't move as she lifted it into her hands. 

"Your puzzle is almost impossible to solve, my old friend," she said to the alethiometer, "Why can only children decipher your mysterious ways? I know I am not the only one to lose touch with the ladders, and there must be more children out there, a deep understanding within their impressionable minds. But I have lost touch with you when my life started to fall apart. I am comfortable financially here, in the walls of Jordan College, but what is money when you have lost the deepest love the world has ever known?" 

If Lyra had asked this before she had turned thirteen, the alethiometer would have told her exactly what to do. But now, in her middle age, she was lost as the needle feebly swung to a few pictures, then stopped on the picture of water. She supposed that meant sadness, but that was because that was how she felt. She was right, though. The ladders were gone. Her steady climb up the ladders was cut short, and she freely fell through her thoughts. Her mysterious trance had been a key part in guiding the alethiometer's needle, but the angel Xephania had told her to consciously understand the alethiometer. She desperately, half-heartedly, asked the alethiometer whether or not Will missed her or not. The needle spun to the heart, to the skull, and to water. Lyra understood that much. Will deathly missed her, as she missed him. _Where is Will right now?_ She asked the alethiometer. The golden compass answered, _He is trying to find the final piece of the subtle knife._

"Whoa. I understood you. Almost two decades, and I finally understood you. Am I going to die now? Because that's what Xephania said. Well, I suppose I'll figure that… WAIT, Pan, did it just say that Will is trying to find the last piece of the subtle knife? That is not good."

"Well, if he can find it, then can't he start a whole new generation of specters, a new abyss, and… general havoc? I mean, he knows better than that. He's smarter than that."

"But he is blinded by love. And so am I. I'm going to go help him, even if I have to claw my way out of the fabric in this world and into his. Even if I have to die young. I should have done this in the first place, Pan, I should have jumped into his world while I could."

"But Lyra, what about the Republic of Heaven? That is your future, Will isn't. If you go back to him, the world will not be saved, and nothing will change. Don't forget Lyra, the Church still exists. The prophesy of your life, doing great things and such, that does not change because you are not a child anymore. Though you have become older, you are still stubborn in your ways. You could have been successful and untroubled, maybe even married by now, if we hadn't gone into the Retiring Room…"

"Oh, you're not on about the Retiring Room again, Pan? Listen, that was so long ago, and I probably would have gotten mixed into the whole mess anyway. I was always curious and stubborn, and I will be until the day I die."

This conversation continued for quite a while, and Lyra and Pantalaimon were arguing so heatedly that they completely missed the white shadow that moved across the room to the door, then walked through it.

In a small silver box in Will's basement were six pieces of the subtle knife. The handle was in another larger box. Will was paranoid that the witches who visited him sometimes would find out about the knife, so he hid each box separately in hidden panels in the walls of his old house. Serafina Pekkala sometimes visited him with news from Lyra. Though Serafina was his dear friend, he could not risk her seeing the knife. 

Will had purposefully destroyed the knife when he and Lyra had split ways in their youth. He had collected the pieces that day. On the way to Mary's house, though, he had decided to bury the fine point of the knife so that he wouldn't be tempted to cut any windows. A year after it had been buried, some idiot up in Oxford College decided to build a construction site over the knife. Will had decided to find the point again, just to…keep it safe. Any children who decided to dig a tunnel could have cut themselves. Will convinced himself that that was the reason for his search. Serafina Pekkala was a witch. She knew exactly what he was up to. Behind Will, who was putting the small box back into the panel by the basement door, was a white figure. He seemed to be made of the air itself, except there was too much air to handle in one place, so he was transparent and white at the same time. On his arms were twenty-four watches, all with different times on them. Around his neck was a small hourglass, a time-turner. In his left pocket in his cloak was an alethiometer, and in his right was the last piece of the subtle knife. His name was Father Time.


End file.
